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A Matter of Minutes: Gunfire, Chaos and Death

Videos, police scanner conversations and frantic memories tell the story of Sunday’s massacre in Las Vegas.

Photo

Fleeing the Route 91 Harvest country music festival grounds as the shooting began on Sunday.
Credit
David Becker/Getty Images

LAS VEGAS — On the ground, they were minutes of fear, of blood and makeshift ambulances, of a twanging guitar silenced by bullets that would not stop. On police radios, they were minutes of confusion and coordination, as emergency responders scanned the gleaming facade of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and raced up its stairwell, trying to get to the gunman before the next volley of gunfire.

When the shooting stopped, another hour passed before the gunman, Stephen Paddock, was found dead in the luxury suite that he had turned into a killing perch. A total of 79 minutes elapsed from 10:08 p.m., when the shooting was first reported, to 11:27 p.m., when a SWAT team burst through the door of Mr. Paddock’s room on the 32nd floor. After killing 58 and wounding about 500 more, he appeared to have shot himself in the head.

Audio recordings of emergency workers’ cross talk and videos and interviews from the scene show a night when police officers quickly focused on a window in the Mandalay Bay, and pinpointed Mr. Paddock’s location when he fired through the door at a hotel security officer. Still, they waited until they had cleared the surrounding hotel rooms and assembled a SWAT team before trying to confront him.

As they moved into place, the concertgoers below were running for their lives.

The first volley of shots came as the country singer Jason Aldean, the Sunday-night headliner at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, down the Las Vegas Strip from the Mandalay Bay hotel, was finishing up a guitar riff and turning back to the microphone to sing. Those shots were fired at 10:05 p.m., Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at a news conference on Wednesday, citing the time recorded on surveillance footage. Mr. Aldean sang a few more bars before turning and hurrying off the stage. As the music stopped, the clatter of gunfire continued.

The police department and the Clark County Fire Department began receiving the first calls for help at 10:08 p.m. Within seconds, some emergency workers were already pinpointing Mandalay Bay as the source of the shots. “It’s coming from upstairs in the Mandalay Bay,” one responder said over the police scanner. “Upstairs in the Mandalay Bay, halfway up I see the shots coming from Mandalay Bay, halfway up.”

10:09 p.m.

“We have an active shooter, we have an active shooter inside the fairgrounds!” — Emergency responder on police scanner “Get down! Hey, you guys, get down! Go that way! Get out of here, there are gunshots coming from over there!” — Police officer on the concert grounds

Video by LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT

Some concertgoers thought the gunshots were fireworks or firecrackers and seemed unfazed, while others began to run immediately. Body camera footage released by the police department shows that despite the initial confusion, some officers were able to identify the sound as gunshots as well as the general direction of fire. They shouted at the crowd to get down, or to run, as they crouched behind a concrete wall.

“That’s fireworks! Not gunshots!” one person in the crowd yelled back.

Video by Nikki Davis

Nikki Davis, 22, first thought the shots were fireworks — but there were no lights, she noted. Then, after a second burst, she thought it might be a power surge. But, after the music stopped, she ran and hid under a table. In a video she took while huddled there, no one could decide whether the best choice was to stay or run. “Get out, get out now, you guys!” one person says. “No, no. Stay here,” another responds.

“I don’t know what to do,” another voice says, as someone else moans in fear.

10:10 p.m.

“There are people down on stage left.” — Emergency responder on police scanner

The firing would not stop. People on the concert grounds were falling where they stood. Those who were still upright had to make an instant, life-or-death decision: Hide or run?

Melissa Ayala, 41, and her friends did not realize that the gunshots were not fireworks until a man near them was grazed by a bullet and fell to the ground, blood leaking from his neck.

“It was just total chaos. People falling down and laying everywhere,” Ms. Ayala said in an interview. “We were trying to take cover and we had no idea where to go.”

“Where do you run to?” said her friend Shami Espinoza, 38, as she wiped away tears. “It’s either: Run and get shot and die, or stay and get shot and die. Those were the choices.”

An on-site medical supervisor for Community Ambulance, which was providing emergency medical services at the festival, requested multiple ambulance units from the company dispatcher. Community Ambulance dispatch notified the Fire Alarm Office, which handles 911 fire and medical calls for the area, about the situation.

10:11 p.m.

“We’re in front of Mandalay Bay. We’re trying to see where the shots are coming from. If anyone can advise if they’re coming from Mandalay.” — Emergency responder on police scanner “Where’s it at?” “North of the Mandalay Bay. It’s coming out of a window.” — Police officers in body camera footage

Video by LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT

Crouching behind a concrete wall, police officers heard over their radios what was becoming increasingly apparent to all the security personnel in the area: Someone was firing from a window midway up one of the towers.

On the scanner, one officer said he was going to form a “strike team” outside Mandalay Bay. At 10:12, two officers arrived on the 31st floor. But confusion persisted about where exactly the gunfire was coming from, with one officer suggesting that it could be from the nearby Luxor hotel, and another reporting, incorrectly, that there were shots fired at one of the concert gates.

The only certainty was that the injuries and deaths were still mounting. “We have multiple casualties. G.S.W.s in the medical tent. Multiple casualties!” reported one responder, using shorthand for gunshot wounds.

10:13 p.m.

“Everybody’s just standing around …” — Local taxi driver

LAS VEGAS

LAS VEGAS FREEWAY

EXCALIBUR

HOTEL

LUXOR

HOTEL

Mandalay Bay

Resort and Casino

The gunman shot

from the 32nd floor.

BROKEN WINDOWS

VISIBLE

MAIN

ENTRANCE

The hotel is about 400

yards from the stage.

200 FEET

LAS VEGAS BOULEVARD

CROWD

STAGE

Site of Route 91

Harvest Festival

NORTH

LAS VEGAS

LAS VEGAS FREEWAY

LUXOR

HOTEL

Mandalay Bay

Resort and Casino

The gunman shot

from the 32nd floor.

BROKEN WINDOWS

VISIBLE

The hotel is about 400

yards from the stage.

200 FEET

LAS VEGAS BOULEVARD

CROWD

STAGE

Site of Route 91

Harvest Festival

NORTH

Mandalay Bay

Resort and Casino

LAS VEGAS FREEWAY

The gunman shot from the 32nd floor.

LUXOR

HOTEL

BROKEN

WINDOWS VISIBLE

LAS VEGAS BOULEVARD

STAGE

Site of Route 91

Harvest Festival

NORTH

By The New York Times

Five minutes after the shooting began, the rat-a-tat of gunfire thundered off and on through the streets around the festival grounds. Puzzled about what was happening, a cabdriver who was recording the events of the night finally got an answer on her dispatch radio: The police at the airport were telling drivers to stay away from the Mandalay Bay.

But she was already in front of the hotel, where several people stood, apparently unconcerned and oblivious, outside the entrance. She rolled down her window to shout at them. “You guys, there’s, there’s shots fired!”

No one moved.

10:14 p.m.

“I can hear the fire from one floor ahead, one floor above us.” — Police officer

Photo

The gunman’s room at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Credit
Eric Thayer for The New York Times

A police officer on the 31st floor of the Mandalay Bay had no doubts about the location of the gunman.

“I’m inside the Mandalay Bay on the 31st floor,” he said. “I can hear the fire from one floor ahead, one floor above us.”

“Just be advised it is automatic fire, fully automatic fire from an elevated position,” another voice broke in. “Take cover.”

The officer on the 31st floor replied: “That is correct, it is fully automatic fire. I’m right below it.”

Among the weapons the gunman had in his suite were 12 rifles outfitted with “bump stocks,” which enables users to fire semiautomatic guns at a rate of fire comparable to fully automatic ones.

“They were .308-caliber bullets, and there were hundreds to thousands of rounds fired,” said District Attorney Steve Wolfson of Clark County, Nev., in an interview. “And he had hundreds to thousands of rounds of ammunition in the room with him.”

Multiple victims received first aid in this area and in the venue’s medical tent.

direction

of fire

LAS VEGAS BLVD.

E. RENO AVE.

V.I.P.

area

Festival

grounds

Medical

tent

MANDALAY

BAY RD.

CROWD FLEEING

GILES ST.

MAIN

STAGE

200 FEET

NORTH

A video showed people climbing over a fence about eight feet tall.

In video and photographs, victims could be seen in this area.

Multiple victims received first aid in this area and in the venue’s medical tent.

MAIN

STAGE

MEDICAL

TENT

LAS VEGAS BLVD.

Festival

grounds

CROWD

GILES ST.

400 FEET

NORTH

People fled in this direction

By The New York Times

Roads were closed as emergency medical personnel began picking up concertgoers who had fled the grounds. The crowd fled, spilling into roadways and over an eight-foot wall. At 10:15 p.m., an officer on the scanner told all units to stay away from Las Vegas Boulevard because of incoming fire.

Volley after volley of gunfire clattered down from the Mandalay Bay, about a dozen in all, said Kevin McMahill, an undersheriff at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

The department, citing a body-camera recording, said on Wednesday that Mr. Paddock fired his final shots at the crowd at 10:15 p.m.

10:17 p.m.

“There was a very heroic security guard who was shot during the search for that suspect.” — Kevin McMahill, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department undersheriff

Mr. Paddock had seen the security officer approaching on one of the three cameras he had placed around the entrance to the room — two in the hallway, one in the peephole in the door. At 10:17 p.m., Mr. Paddock fired through the door, striking the security officer in the leg.

They had found the gunman.

10:18 p.m.

“So many people are dead.” — Woman fleeing the concert

Video by FACEBOOK/CORI LANGDON VIA STORYFUL

The Las Vegas taxi driver was driving past the concert grounds when a small gaggle of concertgoers rushed toward her car and dove inside. “Please, please, please!” they shouted. “Anywhere! Go go go!”

Panting with panic and pain, they told her what had happened. Blood, screams, shots. They needed to be as far away as possible. They thought thousands of people had died.

One of the young women called her mother. “There were so many dead people,” she whimpered into the phone. “I don’t know how I survived.”

10:19 p.m.

“While there was that slight delay, the suspect was no longer firing into the crowd.” — Kevin McMahill, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department undersheriff

Hotel room

High-capacity

magazines

Luggage

Rifles

Bipod

Bump stock

AR-15-style rifle

AR-15-style rifle

Rifle scope

Holographic

sight

AR-15 style rifle

AR-15-style rifles

2

Shooter

By The New York Times

It remains unclear why Mr. Paddock did not fire more rounds, or when he turned one of his guns on himself.

But it would take more than an hour after the shooting stopped, until 11:27 p.m., for a SWAT team to burst through the Vista Suite’s door after two breaching attempts.

As the SWAT team was arriving, the authorities were evacuating guests from their rooms, starting from the 29th floor, where some officers apparently thought one gunman might be. On the 32nd floor, where Mr. Paddock had been staying, some guests left their rooms and ran down the hallway to the elevators in bare feet. Even as police officers closed in on Mr. Paddock’s room, however, uncertainty persisted about whether he was the only gunman.

“It sounds like it’s confirmed there are at least two shooters with fully automatic weapons,” an emergency responder said on the scanner at 10:27 p.m. The scanner also crackled with false reports of shots at other hotels. Some officers did not know for hours whether the festival area was secure.

“I was hearing traffic on the radio all night about shots at the Tropicana, shots at Caesar’s,” said Travis Smaka, a trooper with Nevada Highway Patrol. “Shots were being reported everywhere, it was impossible to know what was really going on. People were going in every direction and victims were all over. I spent the whole night thinking we were under attack.”

But the threat was just Mr. Paddock, and he had stopped shooting. Several emergency responders remarked in the minutes after 10:19 p.m. that they had not heard any shots in some time.

The closest major trauma center, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, received word of the shooting from the police at 10:20 p.m., and activated its mass-casualty system one minute later.

On Tuesday evening, Mr. McMahill was defensive as he described the period between the final shots and the SWAT team’s arrival. “While there was that slight delay, the suspect was no longer firing into the crowd,” he said.

With the floor secured and Mr. Paddock isolated by 10:58 p.m., according to audio from the police scanner, a SWAT team exploded two door-breaching devices, then broke in at 11:27 p.m. They found Mr. Paddock, dead of what seemed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, lying on the carpet among his guns, shell casings and ammunition.

Sheri Fink, Adam Goldman and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting from New York.